"LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special" Talkback (Spoilers)

[Fone Bone]

LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special

That was pretty awful. It wasn't entirely worthless. But it was worth very little indeed.

I have never seen The Star Wars Holiday Special. Unless it is ever released on Disney+ I probably never will, because I refuse to engage in piracy. So probably a lot of jokes and Easter Eggs were lost on me. What I do know is the only person here who was also in that legendarily bad special was Anthony Daniels. That's about the extent of my knowledge of Life Day.

The action sequences, especially involving the multiple time portals were fine, but the problem is that the plot sucks, and none of the jokes are funny. LEGO Star Wars Emperor has a distinct personality, and they always make Darth Vader a bit of a put-upon sad-sack, but the rest of the Star Wars characters in the LEGO projects are usually pretty recognizable. The problem with the sequel trilogy era of characters is that none of the personalities are as arch or distinct as Luke, Leia, or Han were. So when you have Rey, Finn, Poe, Rose, and Ren running around like cartoon idiot Jar-Jars it's super annoying. It's not funny. And you wonder if the LEGO toymakers even realize Finn did not actually have an afro in those movies.

Watching the LEGO version of Luke and Yoda's training has me fuming all over again. Yoda is the one Star Wars character I absolutely loathe unreservedly, and that made me realize why all over again. The best thing he ever did for Luke was die at the beginning of Jedi. Every piece of advice he has ever given was terrible, and every decision he made as the leader of the Jedi when it existed was wrong. I would probably be less mad about him if that were the actual moral, and the Universe looked at him like we do Neville Chamberlain. Instead he's billed as wise and all-knowing by all of the other characters, despite being stupid and wrong about everything. I share the fans' hatred of Jar-Jar Binks. What I will never understand is why those same fans think Yoda is cool. He's about ten times stupider and more annoying.

People wonder why I was so upset at The Child eating baby eggs in The Mandalorian a couple of episodes ago. Because that is the exact kind of thoughtless and selfish move Yoda himself would do, and I had only been able to like the Child because I had convinced myself he wouldn't grow into a turd like Yoda as long as he hung around Mando. But yeah, the Child stealing food he should not have eaten from a stranger is exactly how we were introduced to Yoda in Empire (and it was pretty much all downhill from there.)

Speaking of the Child, did not expect the brief The Mandalorian sequence. The Child's voice here is so bad that I realize that all children's cartoon casting directors besides Andrea Romano deserve to be unemployed. Maybe put in jail. Although I might just restrict that penalty to the idiot who cast Baby Yoda here.

The Han shooting first thing was kind of funny, but Lego has done that joke a couple of times already.

I hear the first special was so bad it was good. This mess cannot even be enjoyed as a guilty pleasure. It's legitimately unenjoyable. It actually stings a bit that this is the first screen project I've ever seen set AFTER The Rise Of Skywalker. Which besides being annoying, makes me very glad none of the Lego stuff is canon. *.

 

[Classic Speedy]

Wow, I completely disagree with you. I enjoyed this a lot. It started off very okay but once Rey started time traveling to the different movies, it really picked up.

The amount of references to all nine movies (well, eight movies and a brief Mandalorian scene) were enjoyable, and they all weren't just recreations, they put spins on the familiar material in the same vein that the Family Guy Laugh it Up Fuzzball trilogy did - just one example: I liked in the Revenge of the Sith segment when Obi Wan warns Anakin, "Anger leads to-" "I KNOW what it leads to!" Or the elevator scene in Attack of the Clones, where Anakin denies he's nervous about seeing Padme but this time he's holding a giant bouquet of flowers.

You brought up Jar Jar- that was another genuine laugh in the special: "This was the worst thing I've seen since Jar Jar's Senate speech."

And in case you or anyone else is wondering, this really has nothing to do with the 1978 TV special. That's actually the reason I tuned in- I was curious to see if they'd parody bits of that special, but they don't. It basically takes the title and the general concept of Life Day but creates its own storyline.

 

[Pooky]

I guess I'm half-way between the two of you. It was a pleasant enough sit, but way too reverent (and seemingly with half an eye on having the potential to be considered cannon?) to live up to the better Lego stuff I've seen, including some earlier Star Wars shorts.